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Thoughts on Google/Viacom court ruling
By Zach Arnold | July 3, 2008
Background information here. A better explanation here. Some quick thoughts:
1) UFC (along with their copyright lawyers) have handled the situation of Zuffa content online relatively well. They have UFC OnDemand, they have the deal with XBox, and most importantly they worked out a deal with YouTube for both filtering content and also producing video ads online to be shared. Additionally, Spike TV also is selling editions of The Ultimate Fighter program on iTunes. By focusing more on how to make their content more accessible as opposed to simply headhunting ‘pirates’ online, UFC and Zuffa LLC has taken the right approach to online viewers of their content.
2) Eddie Goldman long ago predicted that video sharing sites like YouTube would help destroy the PPV model. However, Mark Cuban long argued that sites like YouTube were a lawsuit magnet waiting to happen and that anyone who invested money in such a site knew what they were getting into. Both may end up being very right in the end.
3) Will this have any impact whatsoever in regards to the viewing habits of MMA fans online who like watching online videos of fights?
4) What would it cost someone like Pro Elite to start their own content-sharing site where they can share video content of their product?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
YouTube will never kill the PPV model. If anything, it just helps add future PPV buys.
1. It helps give exposure to fighters.
2. There is much to be said about the human element. Watching an event on a big screen with a bunch of friends.
I agree with 45 Huddle. Nothing is better than watching fights on the big screen TV with all the friends over. Ever since Tyson in the early 90’s, we’ve had people over for fights and nothing beats it. So I don’t think watching fights on the computer will replace PPV/TV. Just wont happen, but it may be a major player for those who don’t like that atmosphere or the kids who live with their parents and can’t enjoy a good fight party.
Of course, Mark Cuban has also been involved in the search industry, and has had similar ventures to Google’s various business lines in the past.
Many of those have gotten Google into court (image search, news search, extracted content inline with search results). To some degree, Google is a very big very rich target.
It’s unfortunate that they’re carrying so much of our personal data in their bloated carapice, because whenever anyone finally gets a shot on target our property goes cascading down into the waiting arms of other greedy corporations that we never intended to give it to (in addition to the greedy corporation Google, which we intended to give it to but probably didn’t think about it at the time).
If I was already likely to buy a DVD or PPV for UFC (or a rival promotion) then watching a YouTube clip related to it would only RAISE my interest in making that purchase. The only programming that gets protected is crappy programming, because you can’t preview crap if it’s protected from “copyright infringement.” It’s like WWE not sending out screeners of their films to critics – you know it has to be bad if they don’t want you to see it before the public does.